--------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- VL70m Expert Editor FAQ guide. This guide to using the Exed is a result of the frequently asked questions sent to us since the Exed was released. Hope it helps. Before using the program, connect the VL70 MIDI in and out cables to your PC and connect your controller. If you are using a WX it is easiest to connect to the front panel of the VL and use standard MIDI cables to a MPU-401 port. This version has been extended to act as a 'front-panel' for the SY-XG100 softsynth. I believe it will also work in this way with the SW192XG soundcard (and probably the SW1000XG soundcard). Details of this are given at the end. ---------------------------------------------------------- To install: 1. Create a new directory (folder) named VLEDIT using File Manager (Win3.x), Explorer (Win95/8) or DOS (md \VLEDIT). 2. UnZIP ALL the files in VLED-ALL.ZIP into this directory. 3. If you have any VL70 library files, put them in the same directory. 4. Create a Program item or shortcut to VLEDITOR.EXE to run the program. You can also run the program from the Run menu or from File Manager or Explorer. Please note: There is no online help file. Selecting HELP in the Exed only gives an error message. We hope to include one soon. -------------------------------------------------------------- Getting started: 1. Select the input and output devices from the menus. Often "SB16 MIDI IN [220] (and out) if you're using a Sound Blaster with MIDI cables. 1a. If you are using your serial port and the special XG cable, you have to install the XG MIDI driver: Yamaha CBX Driver for Windows95 (95DRV-E.ZIP; there's one for Win3.x too) try: http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/xg/utility These drivers don't work with the Exed on some PC's. 2. Choose "File"; "Open Library"; Select a library in the dialog box and click OK. The library will open and show a list of voices. Click on a voice and it will be sent to the VL and you can try it out. 3. If you're using this with a VL70m, you probably don't want any of the options on the options menu to be selected. (See the section on the SY-XG100 below for more details of what they do.) You certainly don't want MIDI Thru to be selected. --------------------------------------------------- As a librarian: (Note, some of this stuff is new in 1.3SXG)) Once you've opened a library and selected a voice, you can play it with your controller. If you want to store it in a custom slot, choose "Send", "Custom", and 1-6. It will be saved there. When you've edited some voices in a library save them with 'Save' or 'Save As'. (Unless you've used an older version of this program, you've probably guessed that!) To create a new library, use 'Open Library' and enter the name of the library. Copy/paste etc. now work as 'normal'. To copy voices between libraries, select the voices you want to copy, cut or copy them (Edit menu), open the destination library and paste them. You can select multiple voices using shift/ctrl, just as normal. If you want to edit voices or paste things while multiple voices are selected, you deserve to get confused, but the voice you're editing is the first one that's selected and items are pasted after the last voice selected. ----------------------------------------------------- VL70 voices: The VL70 has three voice formats and they can be confusing. Custom, Internal, and Current. The VL70 has the "custom" voice as its native format. The presets in ROM and Custom slots are in this format and the libraries as well. It contains the element section and the common part section. You can view the element as the instrument itself and the common section as how the controller plays it. "Internal" voices are small modifications made to presets or custom voices and saved in the internal bank. They point to the voice they are modifying. You can think of them as "performances" as used on more conventional synths. The parameters modified are only in the control and effects sections like reverb and breath control, etc. If you replace a custom voice, any internal voice pointing to it will become confused. See page 34 in the manual. Chose an internal voice and then press the part + and - buttons together and you'll see what preset or custom is the source of the internal voice. "Current": When a voice is loaded into the play/edit buffer, it is convoluted into the "current" voice format, we assume for XG compatibility. All editing takes place in "Current" voice format. Voice sysexes can be in any format: Current : 1808 bytes (in a group of 14 sysexes) Custom : 1572 bytes (in 2 sysexes) Internal: 174 bytes (in 1 sysex) The ExEd has no way to get sounds from the VL. But you can use any sysex tool to recieve sysexes from the VL and save them to disk. You can then use the ExEd to load and edit the sysex files. You can also use our DOS utilities including syx2lib to move voices in and out of libraries. --------------------------------- As an Editor: As an editor, the VL is rather complex. It uses a set of equations to create the Stanford model, of a real horn and then "plays" it by calculating the results. The Exed creates different instruments by modifying variables in the mathematical model. If you want to understand something about this you might start with Arthur Benade's book "Horns, Strings and Harmony" available in paper from Dover. Or the more advanced "Fundamentals of musical acoustics" also by Benade for the real math. >From here on, you're pretty much on your own. Best way is to try editing parameters and listening to the results. And post your questions and comments to the wind list. We're all just learning this new synthesis model. Edited voices can be saved as described above. We wrote the ExEd concentrating on the element itself since there's no other editor for the PC. We haven't addressed the common part parameters since they can be edited from the front panel. Or you can use Daniel Reisinger VL70m-editor for Win95. http://iphcip1.physik.uni-mainz.de/~reisinge/program3.html -------------------------------------- As a front panel for the SY-XG100 The SY-XG100 (SXG from now on) is a softsynth from Yamaha that includes a reasonable XG wavetable synth and 1 VL voice (without the effects). A demo version can be downloaded from http://www.yamaha.co.uk/xg/html/midplug/m_mid9.htm You can also buy the full version from the same site. As a VL synth, it comes with no instructions and no useful user interface, so without a bit of help, it's very hard to get to work. The ExEd can be used as a 'front panel' for the SXG, apparently presenting a list of patches that can be clicked on or selected with patch change messages, allowing patches to be edited and so on. In fact, the 'patch list' is a library file loaded into the editor, which listens for patch change messages and downloads the apropriate patch to the 'current voice' of the SXG. In this way of working, the patches actualy in the SXG are totaly irrelevant, as is the XG part of the SXG. If you're mostly interested in using the SXG as a VL synth with non-factory patches, this is an ideal way of working. If you're also interested in the factory patches or XG, you might want to check out XGedit for an alternative approach. I think all this information also applies to the the SW192XG soundcard (and various other clone soundcards based on the same chip), but I haven't tried it. To use the SXG you need at least a PII processor and a soundcard that supports DirectX in native mode (most modern ones, any soundblaster, some others). Setup: Firstly, get the SXG and install it. It will probably have installed itself to use non-DirectX drivers, so it will have an unusable latency. Go to the SXG control panel, select DirectX and set the response time to fastest. Now reboot. You should now have a usable system. Now follow the installation instructions for the ExEd (above). Select the MIDI port with your WX or keyboard as the Input Device and the Yamaha SXG Driver as the output device. Select every single option on the options menu (I'll tell you what they do in a moment). Load a library and click on a voice. Now start playing (On MIDI channel 1) and you should hear beautiful music. If you want more libraries, check out the patch library at http://windsynth.org I can't include the internal patches as .lib files because I'm not sure about the copyright; email me (leon@leonclarke.demon.co.uk) to see if I've clarified the situation. Also, check out patchman music, who will sell very highly regarded patches. http://members.aol.com/patchman1/yamahaVL70M.html In use: Firstly, the big downside with the SXG is that it has no MIDI out, which means that the tuning functions in the editor won't work. You can play around with simple things like the controller mappings, but if you star mucking around with the element it'll go out of tune and you can't automaticaly re-tune it. If you've selected 'Respond to patch changes' option, then when you send a patch change message, the editor will download the apropriate patch to the SXG. When you meet a real VL70m owner, go on endlessly about how this gives you 128 custom sounds at a time, compared to their 6! (Libraries can (I think) have up to 256 patches in them, but you need to use the mouse to select subsequent ones because patch change messages only go up to 128.) If you've selected 'Select Voice at Startup' then when you next start the ExEd, it will not only remember which library you were using, but remember which patch and download it. This will, of course, erase whatever was in your current voice; VL70m owners who might have precious front-panel edits won't like this so it's an option. 'Send Bank Select at Startup' sends a bank select and program change message whenever it opens a MIDI port. This puts the SXG out of XG mode. (Again, if you've got a VL70M you probably won't want this; it'll select bank 1 voice 1 whenever you start the ExEd) 'MIDI Thru' means that MIDI In is copied to MIDI out. Because the VL70M copies MIDI In to MIDI out, you don't want to select this if the input and output are both connected to the VL70M as you'll get a MIDI loop and bad things will happen. If you want to use this with a sequencer, you'll need a MIDI Loopback driver like Hubli's or MidiYoke (that comes with MIDI-OX). Select it as the input in the ExEd, and send your output to it in the sequencer. I can't find Hubli's homepage right now; you can get it from http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/2872/hmidilb/hmdlpbk.html The MIDI-OX homepage seems to have moved; it was at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JamieOConnell/midiox.html If you want to use the XG side of the SXG as well, use channels other than 1! For more info about editing patches, read Manny's Guide (which should be included with the ExEd) and/or download the manuals for the VL70M and MU100R from www.yamaha.co.uk. The MU100R manuals are a good source of info about the XG section, but be warned that the MU100R is a lot better, so not everything it describes will exist!